Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual

In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens explores sanctuary through the lens of exile and migration. Silkroad cellist and composer Karen Ouzounian traces her family's journey from Anatolia through Lebanon to Canada, sharing how Armenian melodies connected the diaspora over generations of displacement, and inspired her own compositions. Then, we hear from Ukrainian band Kommuna Lux who tour to help provide a sense of hope for communities separated from their homeland by war, and music scholar Dr. Ailbhe Kenny examines how music helps asylum seekers reclaim their identities.

Featured Guests

Karen Ouzounian – Cellist, composer, and Silkroad Ensemble member

Vladimir Gitin – Clarinettist and founding member of Kommuna Lux

Taras Luka – Accordionist and bassist with Kommuna Lux

Nicko Shevelov – Drummer with Kommuna Lux

Dr. Ailbhe Kenny – Music education researcher and author of Music Refuge: Living Asylum through Music. The song 'Khuluma isintu' (Speak to the People) featured in this episode was composed by Dr Seán Doherty for The Song Seeking Project, led by Dr. Kenny.

For more on Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual, visit http://silkroad.org

In this episode of Sanctuary, host Rhiannon Giddens introduces us to Silkroad violinist and vocalist Mazz Swift to explore how improvisation can turn music into a true refuge. Mazz shares their journey of falling out of love with traditional classical spaces, and finding their voice through conduction, a system of visual cues created by composer Butch Morris to guide improvisation. We join Silkroad at community workshops at the Eastman School of Music and the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, where music making builds safe places for self-expression, and hear from members of Chicago’s D-Composed collective, whose work reclaiming community spaces and uplifting Black composers is a powerful model for healing and belonging.

Featured Guests:

Mazz Swift – Violinist, vocalist, composer, and Silkroad Ensemble member

Dr. Angela Wellman – Founding Director of the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music

Tristan Williams – Violist and educator at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music

Khelsey Zarga – Violinist, composer, arranger, and member of D-Composed

Seth Pae – Violist and member of D-Composed (@sethamusic)

For more on Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual, visit silkroad.org.

In this episode of Sanctuary, host Rhiannon Giddens begins our journey into the ways that music serves us as a vital tool for healing and community.

Musician Mauro Durante introduces us to the pizzica, a centuries-old trance tradition from Southern Italy that began as a communal ritual to cure spider bites. Then, we look at how those same therapeutic practices apply today, from neurological music therapy at Northwestern University to music circles helping combat veterans process their PTSD through songwriting.

Featured Guests:
Mauro Durante - Violinist and percussionist, Artistic Director of Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino

Massimiliano Morabito - Ethnomusicologist and organettista

Dr. Borna Bonakdarpour - Associate Professor of Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Lee Haight - Musician and Board President of Soldier Songs and Voices, NWA Chapter

For more on Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual, visit https://www.silkroad.org/.

Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual is a new podcast hosted by Grammy Award-winning musician and Silkroad Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens. Sanctuary is produced in partnership with PRX and Silkroad.

As we mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, we reflect on the state of America today. Historically, people from all over have sought sanctuary in America. Across these different cultures, music has played an essential role in healing, community-building, and belonging.

Through interviews with artists and academics, we’ll trace the roots of this tradition and see how Silkroad melds this into their new work. Scenes will follow Silkroad artists into community events as they celebrate this cross-cultural creation, share their performances, and form new ways to connect.

Join us weekly on Thursdays as we celebrate the music, traditions, and communities that represent sanctuary.

Our final episode brings us to Boston, MA where, at the turn of the 20th century, Black men and women worked as Pullman porters and maids – serving predominantly white travelers while reinforcing a hierarchy reminiscent of the Antebellum South. Wives, sisters, and daughters largely made up the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters – and served as their mouthpiece – keeping the economic, social, domestic, and political interests of railroad workers at the center of their activism. We’ll hear from special guests Kerri Greenridge, Larry Tye, Melinda Chateauvert, and Helen Credle, as well as from musician and Silkroad collaborator Cécile McLorin Salvant, whose song “Have You Seen My Man?” gives voice to the legions of Black women who awaited the safe return of their loved ones aboard the trains, while they took care of home in communities like Boston’s South End neighborhood.

Centuries before the Dakota Access Pipeline snaked beneath Lakota-Sioux land, the transcontinental railroad barreled through it. Standing Rock Sioux Reservation leaders Dave Archambault Sr. and Jr. discuss how the economic and social expansion of America often comes at the expense of indigenous people. We’ll also hear from musician and Silkroad collaborator Pura Fé about her time in Standing Rock for the #NoDAPL occupation, ethnomusicologist Everardo “Ever” Reyes take on how songs like Fé's “Mahk Jćhi” are a part of a long tradition of indigenous protest music and Standing Rock Sioux tribe member and historian Dakota Goodhouse on the legacy of Sitting Bull and how Indigenous people opposed and resisted westward expansion.

Episode 3 brings us to California, where historians Karen Ishizuka and Roland Hsu detail the contributions of Japanese and Chinese railroad laborers in a country that leveraged xenophobic laws in attempts to eradicate their cultural heritages. Haruka Fujii, Associate Artistic Director of the Silkroad Ensemble, also walks us through ‘Tamping Song’—an ode to ‘Tamping Ondo,’ a Japanese work song that captures the spirit of laborers dedicated to the rail.

Episode 2 of the American Railroad podcast brings us to Hell’s Kitchen, a New York City neighborhood that historian Miriam Nyhan describes as transformed by immigration and expansion of the state’s railroad boom. Despite tensions between Black and Irish railroad workers, living and laboring side-by-side created a distinctly American sound. We hear from Kestrel Wolgemuth from New York’s Irish Arts Center (IAC), as well as from artist and catalytic agent Lenwood “Leni” Sloan and Silkroad Ensemble member Maeve Gilchrist, as they use music to capture the energy and urgency of the time during their workshop at the IAC.

Episode 1 takes us to North Carolina, where host and Silkroad Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens reveals the origins of the popular Appalachian folk song, “Swannanoa Tunnel” and how professors Jeffrey A. Keith and Kevin Kehrberg’s research sparked important conversations about erasure and ownership in Appalachian music. We’ll also hear from Banjo player Tray Wellington about his experience as a Black band leader making a way in a genre not well known for performers who look like him.

Embark on "American Railroad," a five-episode podcast that seeks to right historical wrongs by highlighting the untold stories and unheard voices from the diverse communities that built America’s railway systems. Hosted by Grammy Award-winner and Silkroad Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens, American Railroad is produced in partnership with PRX.

From Silkroad and PRX, the American Railroad podcast is where history and music come together. New episodes begin November 14.